Chicago (IL) - Microsoft and Red Hat have joined forces on a virtualization interoperability pact that will be great for customers -- especially those who utilized mixed source. Yesterday, it was announced that each company will begin validating and certifying the other's virtualization software and begin to coordinate technical support. This will be great for customers beginning to utilize mixed source tools involving the incorporation of both Linux and Windows servers within their data center.





The partnership will basically serve as a boost in virtualization compatibility between Windows and Red Hat enterprise Linux. Businesses which use both platforms will have simpler interoperability.



In 2007, Microsoft announced a similar partnership with Novell -- which they very quickly determined was an issue as Linux technologies infringed on many of Microsoft's patents. The company then decided they wouldn't negotiate interoperability agreements with any Linux vendors unless a Novell-style patent indemnification agreement was signed.



Red Hat has offered on numerous occasions to work with Microsoft on the interoperability issues, even outside of the range of patent agreements. Microsoft felt the issue of interoperability couldn't be addressed unless licensing issues were resolved.



Microsoft has now changed its opinion in that regard. The company will allow its customers to run Red Hat Enterprise on their Windows machines smoothly, and with no difficulties.



The two companies will utilize a hypervisor (a virtual machine manager), which is a software program designed to allow multiple operating systems to share a single hardware host utilizing speedups afforded by modern virtualization-aware CPUs, such as Intel's Core 2 and Core i7, as well as AMD's Phenoms and Opterons. By the second half of the year, Microsoft will be on Red Hat's hardware certification list.



The agreement between the two companies has no patent or open-source licensing agreements:

"There are no financial clauses beyond simple certification testing fees. These are straightforward certification and validation agreements," according to Red Hat platform business vice-president Scott Crenshaw who wrote this on his blog.



This means that unlike Novell, which pays Microsoft "protection money," Red Hat will not have to pay to keep Microsoft from suing individuals who have contributed to development of the Linux operating system.